“We do. Can we try to work them out together?”
There’s a hint of hope in his words. Still, that doesn’t erase or explain his recent behavior.
A single tear works down my cheek. “You left.”
Guilt consumes his handsome features. For a brief moment, he looks like his old self the time he forgot the anniversary of our first date. He was always so good about remembering everything—birthdays, anniversaries, special occasions… But he was getting ready to graduate. He had a lot on his mind. Exams, moving back home, his future. When I gave him a card, his entire face drooped, and he looked like he felt about two inches tall. Like he totally and completely let me down. Like he’d failed me on some monumental level.
And right now, that strong, charming, angular, bearded face with those same striking blue eyes is looking at me the exactsame way. Which is how I know he really means what he’s saying.
“I won’t leave again, Ava,” he says in a soft yet determined voice.
I want to believe him. Especially because of how he’s looking at me. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. I want to trust what the doctors said about how his behavior might not be entirely under his control. But that doesn’t make this any easier.
“How can you be sure?”
He sighs, leaning into his pillow, looking at me with those same dreamy blue eyes I’ve loved for decades. He’s in there somewhere, the old Trevor. I’m sure of it. Even if the memories never return, there’s a part of him that’s still… him.
“I suppose there aren’t any real assurances in this life. My accident proves it.” He lays his hand on top of mine. “But I promise to try. Try to be a good husband. Try to be a supportive partner.” His eyes train on my stomach. “Try to be the kind of father our child can look up to.” He scoots closer. “Ava, I’m not telling you I won’t make mistakes. God knows I will. But I’m telling you right now, I’m going to do whatever it takes to prove to you I can be the kind of man you need.”
And there he is. This is why I keep giving him chance after chance. When he says things like that. Things he used to say. Romantic things. Emotional things.
“I want to believe you. I really do. But all this push and pull is taking its toll.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. I’m not good with words, and I have no idea if I used to be, but I want to try and explain how I’m feeling.”
I nod, grateful for any sense of honesty.
“I feel completely and utterly inadequate.”
“I… I don’t understand. You’re taking steps to get your paramedic license renewed. There’s nothing inadequate about that.”
“Actually,” he says and scrubs his hand down his face in that gesture of uncertainty I'm becoming all too familiar with. “I’m taking steps to get mymedicallicense reinstated. But that’s not what this is about. I’m talking personally, not professionally. People keep telling me who I was. What theold Trevorwould have done. Even when I read the letters I wrote with my own hand, I see the picture of this perfect guy with a perfect job and a perfect life. He was a freaking saint, Ava. How can I ever live up to who he was?”
I swallow. I never thought of it that way. He’s competing with himself. A competition he believes he can never win.
“Yet, you’re back here trying to live up to him,” I say. “By becoming a paramedic, and maybe even a doctor again. By being here with me and saying everything you said about trying to be the man I need. All of that tells me you want to be him. Your old self. Am I wrong? Do you not want to be that man?”
“I’m not sure I can answer that. I mean, yes, I’d love it if my memory returned. But it hasn’t happened, and I don’t know if it will. If it doesn’t, I’m just not sure I can pretend to be someone I’m not… Even if I am taking steps to get part of that guy back.”
I can see his internal struggle behind those eyes. Sometimes I have to remind myself that all of this is hardest on him.
“You don’t have to pretend, you know. If you try to be someone you’re not, it will slowly eat away at you. If we’re going to make a go of this, really try, we have to be real with each other. So instead of trying to be who everyone thinks you should be, why not show us who youareso we can decide for ourselves if you’re someone we want to be around.”
He averts his eyes and lies flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. “That’s what’s so terrifying. What if you don’t like what I show you?”
I put a hand on his chest. “I let you back into our home, into our bed. I even let you back into my heart, Trev. All of that is evidence that Idolike you.” I chuckle. “Amber called you Trevor 2.0.”
He doesn’t laugh at the joke. “That’s the problem, Ava. 2.0 means a better, more improved version. That’s definitely not what I am. And with all the expectations?—”
I press a finger against his lips to shut him up. “Stop with the expectations. You need to get over what others may or may not think of you. Do I miss parts of the old you? Yes, of course. But there are also parts ofthisyou that I love.”
He touches his scruffy face. “Right.”
I smile and roll my eyes. “It’s more than that.”
He rises on an elbow. “Is there anything else you need to tell me? Secrets? Important stuff I need to know? We had a conversation a few nights before everything went to shit, remember? We said we’d tell each other what we were feeling even if we didn’t think it was something the other wanted to hear?”
I close my eyes and nod, feeling sheepish. “I should have told you right then about the baby.”
